Korean Doctors Lead Revolt Against Illegal Abortions

A Catholic-raised obstetrician and
several Catholic ministers in the South Korean government are leading a
campaign to enforce the country’s abortion law.

The law is flouted by the medical
profession, which some estimate does more than a million abortions a year.

Father Hugo Park, head of the
Archdiocese of Seoul’s pro-life ministry, told the Register that both the
country’s justice minister, Kim Kyung-Han, and its health minister, Jae-Hee
Jeon, are Catholics from whom he expects real action on abortion.

The latter, at a conference on the
country’s future last fall, promised to enforce the law, which permits abortion
only in cases of incest, rape, genetic diseases and endangerment of the
mother’s life.

The government’s interest is in
promoting population growth, said Father Park, “but the Catholic Church sees
this as a moral issue.”

Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists
are all rallying behind an unlikely new movement in the anti-abortion cause:
Gynob, a group of 680 gynecologists and obstetricians who came out last fall
against abortions.

Their founder, Dr. Anna Choi,
partner in the Ion Women’s Clinic in Seoul, told the Register that “the income
from performing abortions has become a fundamental part of the practice of
obstetrics and gynecology so that, now, one can’t run a clinic without
performing abortions.”

“On a personal level, this is a
tragic situation and a serious problem for our society,” she said. “Not seeing
the fetus as a living being promotes a culture of contempt for life. The
government and the public have become indifferent to these illegal procedures.
This has the disastrous result of Korea having the lowest birthrate in the
world.”

Indeed, the government has responded
to recommendations from its Presidential Council for Future and Vision as well
as from Gynob by promising enforcement of the abortion law.

It has also started a media campaign
called “Increase Koreans,” implying abortion is unpatriotic, and has raised
subsidies for unwed mothers.

“The Catholic Church supports all
this,” said Father Park, adding, “We were taken by surprise by the doctors.”

Korea is far from alone in
struggling with underpopulation. Some countries have taken proactive steps to
encourage women to give birth. While China still enforces its
one-child-per-family law, neighboring Russia is offering $9,000 to mothers with
a single child to have a second. Portugal may punish childless couples with
high pension payments while rewarding those with two or more children with
reductions.

Father Tom Euteneuer, president of
Human Life International, the pro-life group based in Virginia, said South
Korea stood 214th out of 222 countries in the world in terms of its fertility
rate. He held little hope for any government policies being able to turn that
around. “The results in other countries have been minimal at best. What will
stop it is the courage of doctors such as Dr. Choi.”

In South Korea, where 11% of the 48
million people is Catholic, Gynob has held events where its members publicly
apologized for their abortions and urged doctors to refuse to do any illegal
abortions. The group is now gathering a 1-million signature petition to the
government.

Behind all this is Choi, who was a
practicing Catholic well into adulthood but now says she has no religion. Like
other ob-gyns in South Korea, when she opened her practice, she said, “I found
I didn’t think I could successfully run it without doing abortions. I didn’t
have enough conviction to be the only person not performing abortions when
everyone else was doing them.”

The medical profession blames the
government for giving abortion a crucial economic role by keeping fees too low.
And since abortions are illegal in most cases, doctors do not report them when
they cross the line; therefore, they can charge a market rate — about $430.

OB-GYN clinics are so reliant on
abortions that many do not even do live births. One South Korean obstetrician
was reported to have closed her practice recently, having found she couldn’t
make ends meet after two years of refusing to do illegal abortions.

“Doctors can earn hundreds of
dollars, mostly in cash,” she told The Korean Times, “in
one or two hours by conducting an illegal abortion, while other, legal
treatments for pregnant women take longer but are less profitable.”

Father Park said the problem is not
only the government fee structure. “Many women want only one child. And many
young people are not getting married and do not want children at all. There is
no business for obstetricians.”

At 1.2 children per woman, South
Korea’s birth rate is among the world’s lowest and far below the 2.1 level
necessary to sustain its population.

As for abortions, the Health and
Welfare Ministry admits that almost 350,000 abortions are done each year,
accounting for 43% of all pregnancies. But parliamentarian Chang Yoon Seok has
claimed that five times that number of abortions are done without being
reported.

Essentially, the government has
turned a blind eye since the 1970s because of its concern for overpopulation.

Choi did 20 abortions a month for
six years but stopped when she realized “it conflicted with my duties as a
doctor. On the one hand I was treating infertile patients, and on the other,
killing healthy fetuses. It was difficult to face myself.”

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